The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The narrator and her doctor husband, John, rented a mansion for the summer so that she could recover from a "slight hysterical tendency." Although the narrator does not think she is really ill, John is convinced that she suffers from "neurasthenia" and prescribes the "rest cure" treatment for her. She is bedridden in a former nursery and can neither work nor write. The spacious, sunny room has yellow wallpaper - stripped in two places - with a hideous, chaotic pattern. The narrator hates the wallpaper, but John refuses to change rooms, arguing that the nursery is best suited for his recovery.
Two weeks later, the narrator's condition worsened. She feels a constant sense of anxiety and fatigue and can barely muster enough energy to write in her secret journal. Fortunately, their nanny, Mary, is taking care of their baby, and John's sister, Jennie, is a perfect housekeeper. The narrator's irritation with the wallpaper grows; she discovers a recurring pattern of bulbous eyes and broken necks, as well as the faint image of a hoarse figure trapped behind the pattern.
As the days go by, the narrator becomes more and more anxious and depressed. The wallpaper provides her only stimulation and she spends most of her time studying its puzzling patterns which, as she claims, are almost as "good as gymnastics". The image of the character leaning and "crawling" behind the wallpaper becomes clearer with each passing day. In the moonlight, she can see very clearly that the figure is a woman imprisoned behind bars. The narrator tries to convince John to leave the house for a visit with relatives, but he refuses, and the narrator does not feel comfortable sharing his findings with him in the wallpaper. Moreover, she becomes paranoid that John and Jennie are also interested in the wallpaper and is determined that she alone will reveal the secrets.
The narrator's health improves as her interest in wallpaper deepens. She suspects Jennie and John are watching her behavior, but her only concern is that they become obstacles for her and the wallpaper. She also begins to notice that the distinct "yellow smell" of the wallpaper has spread throughout the house, following her even when she takes walks. At night, the woman in the wallpaper violently shakes the bars of the pattern, trying to pierce them, but she cannot free herself. The swirling pattern strangled the heads of many women who attempted to pierce the wallpaper. The narrator begins to hallucinate, believing she saw the woman crawling surreptitiously out into the sun. The narrator intends to peel off the wallpaper before leaving the house in two days.
That night, the narrator helps the woman in the wallpaper by peeling off the wallpaper halfway across the room. The next day, Jennie is shocked, but the narrator convinces her that she only removed the wallpaper out of spite. Jennie is able to understand the urge to peel off the ugly wallpaper and doesn't tell John anything is out of the ordinary. The following night, the narrator locks herself in her room and continues to strip the wallpaper. She hears screams in the wallpaper as she tears it up. She plans to jump out of a window, but the bars prevent her; besides, she is afraid of all the women who crawl outside the house. When morning arrives, the narrator peeled off all the wallpaper and began to creep around the perimeter of the room. John finally bursts into the room, but the narrator does not recognize him. She informs him that she took off most of the wallpaper so that no one can put her back inside the walls anymore. John passes out and the narrator continues to crawl into the room above him.
